For Brett Ambler, who moved to Boulder County from Virginia in mid-August, his new home seems like the land of permanent fire.

The 29-year-old musician drove down Sunshine Canyon Drive from Timber Trail on his green Genuine scooter Friday morning, filming with his iPhone the smoke of the Dome Fire billowing all around him.

Just seven weeks earlier, Ambler had to quickly abandon his house as the Fourmile Fire -- the state's most destructive blaze ever -- bore down on the foothills west of Boulder.

"This is more wildfire than I've dealt with anywhere else," he said.

Ambler, who got the call to evacuate at 10 a.m. Friday, grabbed three days' worth of socks and underwear, a jacket, scarf and his flute.

For short-term residents and old-timers alike, the foothills of Boulder County have seemed like a tinderbox these last couple of months.

Marjorie Leidig, who has lived at her house 1.5 miles up Sunshine Canyon Drive for 37 years, described the consecutive wildfires as "awful."

But the 70-year-old clinical psychologist said she'd never had to evacuate her home before the Fourmile Fire torched 6,200 acres and destroyed 169 structures in September.

On Friday, she was once again packing up her car with the belongings she prized most: a gym bag, some clothes, her passport, a necklace she had just bought at an art gallery, and her cello.

"I began to see some flames, and of course, that was very distressing," she said of the moments before she headed down Sunshine Canyon Drive, Poorman Road and Four Mile Drive to reach Boulder.

Seanna Biggs waits with a packed car near her home in the 100 block of Pearl Street.
(PAUL AIKEN)

Even with the Fourmile Fire serving as a recent reminder of what she really prizes in life, she still left behind one of her favorite possessions Friday.

"Oh, my bike; that's the one thing I forgot," she said, wincing.

Lessons learned, forgotten

Emergency officials in the county were also recollecting the lessons of the Fourmile Fire and bringing them to bear on the Dome Fire on Friday.

At an evacuation center set up at the Coors Events Center on the campus of the University of Colorado, constantly updated information was the big push. The county's Office of Emergency Management Web site was projected on a screen on the wall, and Internet-enabled laptop computers were available for evacuees to use.

"One of the things we learned is that information is the resource evacuees need the most," said Jim Rettew, spokesman for the Mile High Chapter of the American Red Cross. "We're being more proactive about getting info up."

During the Fourmile Fire, many residents complained that they were being kept in the dark about the conditions of their homes or when they might be allowed to return to their neighborhoods.

Rettew said information dissemination was a little less challenging this time around -- and residents were less frazzled -- given the fact that no houses had burned. But even with the clearer lines of communication, not everyone was able to get the knowledge they needed when they wanted it.

Eryn Callihan, who is house-sitting for her parents two miles up Sunshine Canyon on Granite Drive, was also house-sitting during the Fourmile Fire and was evacuated then, too.

In September, the fire was far enough away that Callihan was able to take three carloads of stuff out of the house. But on Friday morning, she was in Aurora when the evacuation orders came in and had not been able to reach her parents' house, where her dog and cat were stranded.

"I'm very stressed about my pets being up there, and some of my neighbors who are a little older," she said, wiping away tears as she stood at a road block on Mapleton Avenue west of Fourth Street.

Of the back-to-back evacuations, she said: "Twice within two months is a little much."

Across the street, Beth Rozek was parked just 300 yards from her home in Knollwood Estates. But she wasn't allowed past the police roadblock either and couldn't check up on her two dogs.

She said she was driving up Mapleton Avenue around 11:30 a.m. Friday after volunteer teaching at a Boulder church when she saw the smoke barreling over the ridge.

"Oh, my God, it's the second time," Rozek muttered to herself. "When you see smoke over the ridge, it makes your heart sink."

'Reality of where we live'

Susan Brooks, who lives at Juniper Avenue and Fourth Street, said signs of both fires came to her the same way. She smelled smoke while hiking around Mount Sanitas.

During the Fourmile Fire, she and her family came under an evacuation alert and prepared to leave their home behind.

"We were packed and ready," she said. "We had a U-Haul and everything."

In the end, they didn't have to leave.

But on Friday morning, she wasn't so sure, as thick, cough-inducing blankets of smoke swirled down Sunshine Canyon Drive and settled onto the western outskirts of Boulder.

Brooks wasn't certain she'd make it to her daughter's Halloween pumpkin-carving party at school, given the possibility of receiving a reverse-911 call to evacuate.

But all she, or anyone, living near the foothills of Boulder County could do was take it in stride and hope for the best, she said.

"It's just the reality of where we live," Brooks said. "It's one of the downsides of living in one of the most beautiful parts of the country."